At present, such wastes are stored on the surface, in buildings or containers that are sealed against ionizing radiation or that are buried beneath a protective layer.
Although such methods may seem satisfactory for materials of low radioactive activity and in the short term, they are unreasonable with certain substances of high activity, or with increasing masses of such substances.
One solution consists in storing radioactive wastes at depths of several kilometers.
French patent No. 2 608 119 describes apparatus for transmitting information and/or instructions over a wide passband and/or for location purposes between a mobile and a control station for the mobile, the apparatus comprising a hollow tube running parallel to the path followed by the mobile and forming a waveguide, the tube having an emitting face which is pierced with an array of openings for passing microwave electromagnetic radiation, the mobile being provided with at least one transmit and/or receive antenna for use with microwaves disposed facing the face of the tube that is pierced by the array of openings, the hollow tube being connected to at least one microwave feed member and to a member for receiving microwaves that come from the tube.
Such apparatus enables broadband analog information and/or high bit rate digital information to be interchanged, firstly such as telephone and/or video signals, and secondly such as telemetry and/or remote control signals, and it also allows position and/or speed measurements of the mobile to be performed as it moves close to the tube forming the microwave waveguide, which tube is referred to below as a "waveguide".
The present invention relates to a method of acting remotely in an underground shaft and/or gallery, in particular for storage of radioactive wastes, by using such waveguides for transmission and remote control purposes.
It might be possible to use freely-propagating radiowaves.
However, such transmission suffers from problems of interference, in particular with underground transmission where so-called "tunnel" effects can prevent proper transmission of waves between the transmitter and the receiver.
These problems are solved by the method of the invention.